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NetSuite for professional services firms
Projects, resources, time and billing in a single system: track the profitability of every engagement, from quote to cash.
6 NetSuite solutionsfor professional services
Your challenges
Know what every engagement really earns
In a consulting firm, an IT services company, an agency or an engineering firm, revenue depends on your team’s billable time. When timesheets, scheduling, billing and accounting live in separate tools, a project’s real margin only shows up at month-end, often too late to act.
NetSuite brings professional services automation (PSA), resource planning, time and expenses, billing and accounting together in a single database. SuiteVise sets up these capabilities around the way you contract: time and materials, fixed fee, milestones or subscription.
Industry challenges
The management challenges of services firms
Late or incomplete timesheets
Without regular time and expense entry, invoicing falls behind and part of the work delivered is never billed.
Utilization that is hard to manage
Knowing who is available, with which skills and for how long, stays a manual exercise when scheduling lives in a spreadsheet.
Many billing models
Time and materials, fixed fee, milestones, rebilled expenses: every contract has its rules, and every exception slows down invoicing.
Margins discovered too late
Budget consumed, effort remaining and margin are only reliable when time, purchases and billing are tied to the same project.
Solutions
NetSuite capabilities for professional services
Project management (SuiteProjects)
Projects broken down into phases and tasks, budgets, progress and remaining effort, directly in NetSuite.
Resource planning
Staff assigned by skill and availability, with a clear view of workload and utilization.
Time and expenses
Timesheets and expense reports entered online or on mobile, with approval workflows before billing.
Project billing
Invoices generated from approved time and expenses, completed milestones or fixed-fee schedules, without rekeying.
Revenue recognition
Revenue recognized by percentage of completion or milestone according to your accounting rules, with unbilled and deferred revenue tracked.
Profitability dashboards
Margin by project, client and consultant, utilization and backlog, updated in real time.
How we help
How SuiteVise supports services firms
We start with your contracts: how you sell, how you bill and how you measure margin. These rules shape how projects, services and rates are set up in NetSuite.
We then configure the full cycle, from the opportunity in the CRM to the accounting entry, and train your project managers and teams on time entry so your data is reliable from day one. The features are detailed on our SuiteProjects project management page.
Key project areas
Project templates
Services and rate cards
Time approvals
From deals to projects
Open project migration
Margin indicators
Expected benefits
What changes for your firm
- Less unbilled timeApproved time flows straight into invoicing, with no rekeying or omissions.
- Margins tracked continuouslyCosts, time and revenue are tied to the same project for the whole engagement.
- A shared scheduleProject managers and leadership see the same workload and availability.
- A better-prepared closeUnbilled and deferred revenue rely on up-to-date project data.
FAQ
NetSuite for services firms: your questions
Is NetSuite a good fit for consulting and IT services firms?
Yes. NetSuite connects sales, consultant staffing, time tracking, billing and accounting. Depending on the size of your teams and the complexity of your scheduling, we recommend SuiteProjects, built into NetSuite, or SuiteProjects Pro, a separate PSA application connected to NetSuite.
Does NetSuite handle time-and-materials and fixed-fee billing?
Yes. A project can be billed on time spent from approved time and expenses, on a fixed-fee schedule or when milestones are reached. Several billing models can coexist in the same organization.
Can staff enter time and expenses on mobile?
Yes. The NetSuite mobile app lets users enter timesheets and expense reports, including photos of receipts. Entries then follow your approval workflows.
NetSuite for your industry
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Professional services
Make NetSuite the tool that runs your engagements
Let’s talk about your billing models and KPIs: we will show you how NetSuite handles them.